Curriculum Overview

The International School of Charlottesville is a learning community dedicated to developing the whole child as an individual as well as a member of the community. Children are guided to express themselves with confidence as they develop academic skills and learn about their world. Low student to teacher ratios let our experienced faculty work with individual students to establish skills at a developmentally appropriate rate, which keeps learning exciting.

We believe that very young children learn through their senses and through play. By giving them the opportunity to see, hear, feel, smell and taste, and by allowing them time, materials and space for pretend and symbolic play, we provide in-depth learning experiences.

Language development is critical to the development of abstract thinking and competency in literacy. Our young students engage in meaningful conversations with their teachers and peers. They listen to stories, participate in singing and rhyming games, and they are encouraged to share their ideas and discoveries.

Older children are offered more structured literacy activities. They learn the letters of the alphabet in a variety of ways which engage all their senses. They are exposed to printed language throughout the classroom. Students keep journals and make books expressing their own ideas. In Kindergarten, the children receive structured reading instruction so that by the end of Kindergarten, all the children are emergent readers.

Mathematical concepts are taught in a hands-on manner. Children sort, count, shape, and play with mathematical concepts. By the end of Kindergarten, the children are familiar with the concepts of addition, patterns, measurement, basic geometry, and data graphing.

During the Pre-Kindergarten and Kindergarten years, ISC continues to emphasize social development, but students spend more time on teacher-guided concepts and academic-oriented activities. The children will review and deepen many of the concepts and competencies introduced and acquired during their preschool time. Space and time for pretend and symbolic play and creative activities continue to be widely available to the children to allow for emotional and cognitive processing of learning experiences.